Russians Are Golden

There's been hockey aplenty this weekend, with international play colliding with NHL conference finals in an all-out battle for hockey supremacy and the attention of hockey fans everywhere.

Without a doubt, though, the most exciting (and least painful, unless you're Canadian) of these games was today's World Championship gold medal game. It was the ultimate game, a clash of the titans, two undefeated teams meeting to continue a historic rivalry, Russia vs. Canada. After falling behind by two goals twice, Russia stormed back to win in dramatic fashion thanks to Ilya Kovalchuk's overtime goal - his second of the game and the tournament.

And for Caps fans, it was certainly a proud moment to see some of our very own receiving their gold medals. In fact, it's hard to see pictures of Ovechkin, Semin and Fedorov, clutching the trophy and bringing it to their lips...and not picture a different trophy in its place.

The three of them made up the formidable "Capital Punishment" line, and every shift they lived up to their name. Today was no exception - at many times they appeared to be the best line on the ice, matching Canada's top line shift after shift, and Semin's two goals kept Russia in the game early on when it looked like the Canadians would run away with the gold.

Ovechkin was dominant as expected but he wasn't alone. In fact in just nine games, the trio of Russian Caps combined for 17 goals and 20 assists, and were an astounding +32. All three finished in the top 10 in tournament scoring, joining their teammate Mike Green - whose 12 points made him the top scoring defenseman in the tournament, by the way.

Should Fedorov decide to sign on with the Caps for another year it seems the possibilities are endless. We saw how well Ovechkin and Backstrom played. We saw how well Backstrom and Semin played. And Fedorov is able to center them both, on separate lines or together. It's called depth, folks, and it would be nothing short of a coup to have Fedorov join Backstrom and Nylander down the middle.

Just another thing for GMGM to mull over in the coming months...because he won't have enough on his plate.

The World Championships showed us just how promising this Caps team is; eight different Capitals represented their countries in the tournament, and six made it to the medal rounds with their respective countries. Four of them finished in the top ten scorers. Five of them received medals.

And so today as the Worlds wrap up we join in the celebration.

Congratulations to Backstrom and Sweden, congratulations to Sami Lepisto and Finland, congratulations to Green and Canada for their superb play throughout the tournament. And of course, congratulations to Team Russia - gold medal winners, World Champions, and proud Caps!

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Skills Out the Wazoo

Frozen Moment courtesy of NHL.com

I know I'm supposed to be all serious and say that I hate the All-Star Game and I snooze through the Superskills...but that would be a lie. A big one.

I adore it. Every single overhyped, overdone moment of it. Can't get enough.

I love seeing if anyone can hit four targets in four shots. I love watching the YoungStars. I love the hardest shot. I love seeing which player will step up to get the MVP, expected or unexpected, of the game itself. I love hearing players mic'd up, a la Marty Turco last year.

It seems like we've gotten too cynical as hockey fans - we snark at anything bordering on frivolous entertainment, saying that it's "ruining the game" or that it's "not real hockey". But I'm not sure exactly what is wrong with taking a weekend away from the game before the real serious business of playoffs starts. I'm not sure why we decided that a showcase of skill and talent and personality is anti-hockey, something to be avoided at all costs. It is central to what hockey is and to me, there's nothing wrong with that.

Anyways.

Tonight we kicked off the festivities with the new, improved Superskills competition, and yes, there were some misses. The camera work for one was enough to give a fan vertigo and made it hard to follow sometimes. The obstacle course had entertainment potential but fizzled a bit. And technical difficulties abounded to kick it all off, which always puts a damper on things.

But if people were willing to just sit back and enjoy, they saw a lot to like. The three on three YoungStars game was more exciting than I thought it would be, with Backstrom getting two goals (yay Nicky!). The accuracy competition was actually a good one, with Kaberle joining the four for four club and winning the head to head with Arnott on one single shot. Lecavalier stunned everyone by shooting 101.9 in the hardest shot competition...and then Chara demolished that mark by breaking 103.

And Ovechkin? He was having more fun than anyone out there, just loving the crowd and the atmosphere and breaking out the most creative shot of any of the participants in the breakaway challenge. Twice.

It's all just...fun. The players are clearly having fun, the fans there are having fun, and the game tomorrow, while it won't be anywhere near an actual hockey game, has the potential to be fun as well. Forget the rest, leave the attitude at home, and give in to the fact that every once in a while a little frivolity is fun.

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Swedes Take DC by Storm

Need a little happy? Check out this report on Nylander and Backstrom in the DC Sports Bog (a rare Caps sighting for the venerable Post blog deserves recognition, don't you agree?).

My favorite part:

Backstrom comes over to the Nylanders two or three times a week; he went to Nylander's son's hockey game last weekend. "I'm not the babysitter; I'm his seventh kid," Backstrom said.

Good stuff. Almost makes you forget they're playing a game in less than three hours...

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The Swedish Mentor

This is fantastic. Read on: Professor Nylander's School of Hockey

It's fascinating - right after Nylander was signed everyone was asking whether he was brought in specifically to mentor Backstrom. We all assumed it was true but McPhee said no. Nylander said no. It was just a case of right time, right place, right numbers...right?

Cut to months later and two weeks into the season Nylander's already taken the young Swede under his wing, teaching him on and off the ice as the two continue to develop great chemistry. That's a hell of a coincidence, but a great one.

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Slow Start for Swedes?

- Eric Duhatschek at the Globe and Mail has a piece out today about free agents and their slow adjustment to their new teams - mind you, we're three or four games in for most teams, so slow is probably relative, but I digress.

I don't want to be too sensitive about this - Duhatschek makes some good points about needing to find the right balance and how it takes a while for coaches to find out what works and what doesn't. And most of the teams he mentioned can't really be questioned - how well is Gomez doing with the Rangers? Zubrus with the Devils?

But what's interesting is that he includes among the slow starters our very own Michael Nylander. His reasoning is that Nylander was supposed to play with Ovechkin. That's why he was brought in, of course, right? Instead Kozlov (incidentally another free agent signing, which seems to be conveniently forgotten) is playing with the young superstar while Nylander is "trying to find a niche with fellow Swede Nicklas Backstrom."

That's one way to put it, I guess. Nylander has a goal and an assist through three games, Backstrom has two assists. Yes, they look like they're still adjusting.

It's just a little strange to base the failure or success of a player's start on a new team with who you thought they would play with. We all assumed that Nylander would be up with Ovie, but then anyone who watched training camp at all saw that Nylander and Semin had amazing chemistry, while Ovechkin and Kozlov have a history of playing together and seem to get better every night.

I guess we just have a different view of what constitutes a "slow start".

- Speaking of Kozlov, he's loving life right now. But we knew that already.

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Rookie Camp: Day 1

Rookie camp! Yay!

Okay. So it's not as exciting as you may think, but it's the future of the team we're watching out there and it's important. Really.

Naturally it's still better to be watching hockey on an otherwise dull Saturday than to be doing almost anything else, and there were exciting moments. Some guys were good, some were a little rough, a few were spectacular - just what you'd expect. It's only day one, though, and drills are a hard way to get a good idea of the range of talent here.

Some special moments captured on film:

Coach Hanlon doing what he does best - working the wipe board
Watching attentively...
Perreault's posterior
Uhh...
Local boy Werner
Drills...
Learning more drills...
Backstrom - smile!
Michal Neuvirth posing just for me
Some of the guys had an interesting way of
picking up the pucks at the end
They gave up after a little while......but only for a minute:

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Hump Day Ponderings

- I'm sure everyone knows by now that Nicklas Backstrom has officially signed with the Caps and was introduced to the local media Monday afternoon. I was still out of town for that one but I did catch him on Washington Post Live yesterday and was pretty impressed.

Not with WaPo Live - holy crap, is that show booooring...

Anyways, Backstrom is obviously not going to be the flamboyant, spotlight-grabbing player that Ovechkin has been since day 1. You could tell he was nervous, but he was poised and modest, with a fair grasp of English to boot. Not a bad pitch out at RFK this weekend, either - did anyone make it out to the ballpark who can report back?

This is an exciting time for Caps fans, so naturally the local mainstream media is completely ignoring it - I won't babble on about how unjust that is because as usual the boys at OFB beat me to it (and naturally did a better job than I would have...). NBC4.com did post their coverage on their website - a nice 2 minute segment with interviews and photo ops that you can see here. Check it out if you need a little MSM hockey fix.

- The Bears continue their AHL madness by taking a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals...on the other side of the bracket, we have the Hamilton Bulldogs going up 2-0 in their series against Chicago. I don't want to jump the gun here, but a potential Calder Cup Final between the Baby Caps and the Baby Habs?

Beautiful.

- So it looks like we have a few days off before the big show commences Monday night: Sens vs. Ducks, for the whole enchilada...

East vs. West...

US vs. Canada...

Former Capitals assistant coach vs. Former Capitals coach...

Once crappy expansion team vs...well, once crappy expansion team...

Of course, this means we have at most seven hockey games left until we are plunged into a summer of darkness. Boo.

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